"Three Little Words" - August 6, 2021

[jimbo1]

Ashore, quietly Onto my second Martini while binge watching Fred Astaire movies.
Love the one with Red Skelton.

[Colin]

On vacay again,
Martha’s Vineyard my island,
Now gin - toes in sand!

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0fzqVwI ... #Edgartown

[Jarrod]

Ashore! TIL about cuttlefish ink!

[Thurman8er]

This was a tough week, fellow Muggles.

I traveled from Fresno to Dallas to officiate the funeral for my best friend. He died in Qatar while deployed for the Air Force (not KIA, that's just where he was when it happened). It's incredible to me that these little puzzles of ours can provide such balm during the darkest times. I tossed my cares aside for a while and swam to the beach.

Ashore and looking forward to brighter days ahead.

[escapeartist]

Ashore with a pint of Makers Mark.

A PINT of Makers Mark?

Yikes, is that a US pint or a UK pint?

[HunterX]

But... I did think the question was regarding the "but." And any proper grammarian will tell you, it's spelled with an ellipsis: "But..." Ending a sentence with "but..." and leaving off the unfinished part in order to indicate that there are potentially many other possibilities which you can imagine for yourself, is quite common and not particularly regional.
At least it is in my experience, but...

The original question is about a final "but.", i.e., a "but" that is the final word of a full sentence and not an introduction to an ellipsis. Anyway, I did a little with Google (having the time as seem to be solving this week's puzzle so quickly) and found, at https://english.stackexchange.com/quest ... e-sentence, this:

Sentence-final but as it is known is a well documented feature of English as spoken in Ireland, much of Scotland and also in Australia and New Zealand. Although it is perfectly grammatical, it is not considered formal and won't be seen in formal writing or documents. It has been the subject of many academic papers in linguistics and a few books. If you'd like to read up on it, here's a source to get you going:

Mulder & Thompson, 2008, 'The grammaticization of but as a final particle in English conversation' in Ritva Laury Studies in clause combining. John Benjamins. pp. 179-204.

And the Cruise Director's post resonated because I read Irish and Scottish and English crime fiction.

Curious. Learn 2 new things every day...?

How is it pronounced? I'd love to hear whether there is rising intonation, implying something further. Or whether it is more of the standard declarative statement ending.

[EmilyW]

Ashore!

[SReh26]

This was a tough week, fellow Muggles.

I traveled from Fresno to Dallas to officiate the funeral for my best friend. He died in Qatar while deployed for the Air Force (not KIA, that's just where he was when it happened). It's incredible to me that these little puzzles of ours can provide such balm during the darkest times. I tossed my cares aside for a while and swam to the beach.

Ashore and looking forward to brighter days ahead.

So true - this community is a wonderful solace and an escape from dark times. Sorry you lost your best friend. So good of you to officiate. I’m sure it was greatly appreciated. Here’s to better days.

[woozy]

Oh Good Grief!

Ashore. It was all early mechanism I tried but I didn't do it the easy way at first.

[hoover]

I count 29 three-word number 1 song titles for those who might try to brute force it. But it's a taller task than, say, picking FRANKINCENSE from a list of 12-letter words relating to Christmas.

Yeah, that's where I went when staring at the grid and the clues didn't reveal anything.

[escapeartist]

Just like last week, I had to rely on google to confirm the answer on this one.

Heck, I never heard of George R.R. Martin until Game of Thrones was made popular by HBO ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[DBMiller]

Done and done.

[RDaleHall]

Rock The Casbah! (Not the answer and from a different generation…)
Ashore after a fun swim and seeing the path emerge along the way. I had about 4 other answers in mind along the way… Goose Island here we come.

[Wendy Walker]

This was a tough week, fellow Muggles.

I traveled from Fresno to Dallas to officiate the funeral for my best friend. He died in Qatar while deployed for the Air Force (not KIA, that's just where he was when it happened). It's incredible to me that these little puzzles of ours can provide such balm during the darkest times. I tossed my cares aside for a while and swam to the beach.

Ashore and looking forward to brighter days ahead.

Thanks for sharing that sad news with us. My heart goes out to you, and I'm so glad you found some comfort from the puzzle -- it is amazing how that works, isn't it.

[Hidden in 3D]

On shore earlier today. Fairly new at this so it was nice to solve one of these easily.

CHANTELLEBEAL - CONGRATULATIONS.

YOU ARE OUR 1000TH MUGGLE.

OUR GROUP HAS BEEN INCHING TOWARD THIS MILESTONE EACH WEEK AND YOU ARE THE LUCKY ONE WHO HIT THE MARK

GREAT TO HAVE YOU AND ALL THE OTHER MUGGLES HERE.

Welcome, Chantellebeal, and congratulations! I was the 500th Muggle, so does that make you my double? At the time I was sort of hoping Mike Miller might decide to award an extra mug that week to celebrate my historic status. (No such luck.) Your 1000th Muggle milestone is much more illustrious! Perhaps he might reconsider in your case if you ask REALLY nicely???

[lbray53]

Wow! I made that more difficult than it needed to be. I was distracted by two things which were far afield from where I needed to be but I had trouble ignoring them.

[LittleGood]

I'm drifting.

[Kris Zacharias]

On shore as of yesterday. Happy to be there since I have started a new sewing project this week. I liked all the jokes about sewing last week.

[Cindy N]

Made it to shore last night after a definition adjustment as to what I was looking for.

[joequavis]

Ashore! I had the honor of doing this puzzle side by side with my mom (and mug winner) @NaluGirl !